Wrestling with my conscience

This photo doesn’t really have anything to do with the post, but who doesn’t like a pic of some cute kids?!

I’m guessing a vast majority of Westerners who live in the majority world have hit this issue, I know it’s something that came up a lot when I lived in Kenya, and stayed in the back of my mind while we lived in Australia, and now it’s back, with a vengeance, on a whole different level now that we’ve added kids to the mix. Or maybe I’m just strange and most people don’t think about it at all.

What is it?

Well……there’s no easy way to say it, so I’ll just say it.

Affluence. Wealth. And the responsible, reasonable stewardship of said wealth.

I had an interesting experience a couple of weeks ago, that has weighed on my mind a lot since then. And really, to many, it’s probably not that big a deal, something that can be brushed off, justified, dealt with, but it’s stuck with me.

We are about to move house, we are moving into a place that belonged to teammates of ours who have left the country, and before them there was another AIM family living there. So along with the history and furnishings, come two lovely ladies who have been employed by those 2 families for a number of years. They are hardworking, wonderful ladies who rely on their pay to support their families. I had to have a very difficult conversation with them a couple of weeks ago, and basically tell them that we aren’t in a position to employ them both because we can’t afford their wages. It was not an easy conversation. It was not a pleasant conversation. It potentially has massive ramifications for one of the ladies as they lose full-time employment and a fair wage in a place where work and fair wages are not easy to find.

Fast forward 24 hours and we had parent-teacher conferences with the kid’s teachers and received their report cards. They did so well, we were so proud of them. They have not had an easy 8 months (leaving all that is familiar is not an easy thing to do for anyone, but is so much harder for kids who don’t really understand why, or what it means, and really are just coming along for the ride), and they exceeded our expectations for how they would do at school. I remember report-card dinner out when I was a kid, it made me feel so special, so we decided we wanted to celebrate the kids and their achievement and really everything about them ‘cos they’ve done so well, by going out for dinner. We weren’t going to go anywhere fancy – just one of the cheapest places we’ve found that’s close to us, where we like the food.

In order to do that though, I had to cut short my language lesson and tell my language helper that I could only do an hour lesson because we were taking the kids out for dinner. As I said those words it suddenly hit me – here I am, telling someone who is an invaluable help, who has become a friend, who I pay very little in the grand scheme of things, that I am going to take my kids out for dinner, and while I didn’t specify where we were going, I realized we were going out to spend about the equivalent of what I would pay her for 5 language lessons. And last night I’d told those ladies that we can’t afford to pay you both. But tonight I’m going to spend half of your wages. On just one meal.

And suddenly I’m thinking, and constantly think it now, how do we do this? How do we live our lives, make it as smooth as possible for the kids, and us, but live responsibly? Sensibly? As good stewards of what we have? I’ll be honest, financially it’s not always easy and there has been month left at the end of the money, but then if I start to compare with locals – we live in a mansion, we drive a huge car. Golly, we HAVE a car. We buy $11 boxes of cereal for our kids occasionally so that life feels a little bit ‘normal’ for them. We buy apples, and pay 60c each for them because ‘Do we have to have bananas all the time?’ We eat meat at least 4 times a week in a place where meat is a special occasion meal for most.

So how DO we do this? Do we take the frame of mind that plenty of locals live like us, live better than us, so it’s ok? Or we’re ‘rich foreigners’, it’s expected, so it’s ok? Do we give up those ‘luxuries’ that make life that little bit easier and a little more ‘normal’ so that we can live more like those who have less, far less, than us? Do we do nothing, stop thinking about it and just get on with it?

I don’t know that there is an easy answer, or an answer at all.
I guess the wrestling will continue.

The Peace Marathon

Sunday saw the running of the 11^th annual International Peace Marathon through the streets of Kigali, just up the hill from where we live. We thought it would be a neat thing to take the kids up to see it. So off we wandered at about 10 in the morning…..and it was quite odd – the usually busy main road was quiet, no traffic. There were a few people milling about and the odd runner would quietly pass – sweating profusely, eyes focused on the road (or maybe their feet?), no fanfare, no cheering or flag-waving or encouragement to spur them on (at least not in the section where we were).

Just them and the road and the desire to finish.

I’m sure there’s an analogy someone far cleverer than I can make about life being a marathon, but what struck me was just how lonely the experience, and determined you must have to be, to run a marathon. It was hot on Sunday – we worked up a sweat just walking all of 2 kilometres – those guys ran over 40. The hills around us are killers – they’re hard enough to walk up, let alone run. Granted, the course was set on the main roads, which run along the ridges, but still the difference in elevation for the course is up to 150m, and they’re already running at about 1600m above sea level. Don’t know about you, but that impresses me.

We just missed seeing the winners run our section, by a few minutes I’d guess (and the winners were Kenyan – of course!), but it was neat to see people from different nations taking part, and it was a great opportunity to chat with the kids about not giving up, even when something is really hard or even painful, and that not everyone can win, but it’s still important to give things a go and finish them to the best of your ability.

A good reminder for all of us really, in this marathon called life.

Getting our homeschool ON!

I think I can now officially call myself a “homeschooling mum”! Not a label I thought I’d ever have, but Makena and I have been getting our home-school on the last week and a bit. When we came here I expected to do a little bit of homeschooling, but it wasn’t supposed to be a big deal, or a long-term commitment. More a time-filler than anything else.

Well, we’re nothing if not flexible, right?

It turns out our smooth, planned out segue of moving to Rwanda and getting the kids into school was more akin to traveling a little-used bush track, than the smooth ride down a new highway we had pictured. The journey included roadblocks, bush-bashing, detours and washouts. As well as a fair bit of that “pancake fixing” I mentioned here, tears and a lot of questioning – are we even on the right road (in regards to school)? It’s a long story, won’t bore you with the details, but the outcome is that Makena and I are doing a fairly intense homeschool program – 7 hours of phonics, spelling, sight words, reading fluency, comprehension, grammar and maths (*grits teeth and repeats “Maths is fun” over and over*), 5 days a week for the next couple of months.

Last week we had a ‘honeymoon period’ – focus, enthusiasm, all-round great attitude, getting stuck into every task without question or complaint. It was delightful. I was confident, enthusiastic, even quietly thanking the school for messing us around and forcing this homeschool thing on us. This week – reality has hit. I’m seeing why school was so tricky for my girl in a whole new light, how much of a struggle reading is for her, and the clever not-so-great habits she has formed to avoid things that she perceives as too hard or simply not worth her time.

And this whole process has brought to light some home-truths about myself. Like, I’m not very patient with my own kids. Put me in a room with kids who swear at you, throw things or tantrums and I have all the patience in the world (well….to a point). Put me in a room, at a table with my kid who throws a pencil down in frustration, gives me a death stare and huffs ‘I can’t DO this’ and its all I can do not to snap back at her, “Yes you CAN, just give it another go. Read it again. You know this.” Gone in an instant is the patient, sit back and wait, don’t react negatively me.

Also, I don’t handle rejection well, especially through my kids. When we were told that the school was not going to take one of the kids and was questioning their ability to cater for the other, due to their results on the pre-admission assessments they did (don’t even get me started on standardised testing. I had little patience for it before, and even less now), well……lets just say you probably would have enjoyed being a fly on the wall and seeing the little tantrum I threw.

And I have the whole-self condemnation thing down to a fine art. “It’s all my fault. If only I hadn’t worked the last 3 years I would have been there for my kids more, I shouldn’t have studied because that took even more time away from them. If I weren’t working and studying I would have noticed how hard school was for Makena, I would have been able to help her. Why did we move here, ‘cos how are we going to get her assessed and helped and fixed now? What kind of a parent are you? Heck, what kind of a teacher are you to not pick this up?” Helpful. Not.

So clearly, I have some stuff to work on. But I have to say, despite all of that, I am cherishing this opportunity to spend time with my girl. To encourage her and be the one to see her excitement when she’s doing something well. To teach her new things and learn with her (like congruent shapes and order properties and – now I’m really showing my ignorance (what hope does the kid have?!) – that ‘tele’ is Latin for ‘far away’!). To have lots of time with her – just the two of us – something that I feel I’ve missed since she was a toddler. To help her with her learning and reading which I’ve mourned missing out on a lot over the last few years. In a way, I feel like I’ve been handed this opportunity to make up for lost time.

And that is a blessing.

 
 

Pancakes

Makena has recently taken a particular liking to cooking. She can make French Toast on her own, is quite an accomplished egg scrambler, & enjoys helping with dinner or baking as often as she can. Lately she’s been asking me to teach her how to make things “from scratch”, and decided she wanted to start with pancakes. “I can do it,” she assured me, “on my own.” So off she went, getting each step from me (I don’t have a printed recipe for pancakes) then going to do it on her own. When she added the milk I left her to it with the instructions that she needed to get all the lumps out so she had a smooth batter. All good.

Or so I thought.

When I came back I discovered she had added almost 2 litres of milk to her batter – “because it didn’t feel right. So I just added more until it was better!”

Thankfully I was able to salvage her batter, but needless to say – we ate pancakes for 3 days!

It got me thinking though – how often do we try to fix things because they don’t “feel right”? Things that we have supposedly given to God & are trusting Him with, but as soon as something happens that doesn’t meet with our expectations, or the timing is ‘wrong’, we try and fix it.

Or am I the only one who does that?

Picture source.

Things I’ve Learned

I had planned on writing a new post much sooner than this, but packing your life into 5 bags and a container (for storage – not shipping!) is quite an experience, as is world travel with said luggage and 2 kids. Thought I’d share some of my observations, and the things I’ve learned through the experience. I’ve numbered them, though not in order of importance or preference.

1.  When packing your life to move it across the other side of the world, I would recommend not working right up until a week before you are due to leave. Finish as early as possible, I’d suggest a month. At least.
   This gives you:
   a) opportunity to finish well at work and have time for proper goodbyes & closure
   b) time to solely focus on everything that happens in life outside work for the last little while before you go. It’s incredibly difficult to remain focused on your job when you have so much else going on. And yes, I speak from experience. As in the kind of experience you have from not taking your own advice.
2. Pack your house and move out at least a couple of weeks before you are due to fly out. That way it’s all done and you have time to give others, and yourself, plenty of opportunity to say goodbye. Packing the house, redirecting the mail and all those little, last minute jobs take a lot of time away from what’s most important – relationships. One of the things that saddened me most in our last weeks at home was feeling like I didn’t have the time to spend with friends and family to say goodbye.
3. Don’t be too proud to accept help from others.
   As a very wise person told me – people won’t offer to help if they don’t really want to, and for some, that’s how they express their love for you. I cannot express how grateful I am to the people who gave up time to come and do odd jobs, tidy the gardens, help with a garage sale, people who recognised that I wasn’t coping and came and packed most of my house in the weeks, and then days, before we were due to fly out, who weren’t afraid to say “Get rid of it” or “Yes, you should keep that” when I couldn’t make the decision, who finished the packing when we ran out of time, who cleaned up the mess we left so the house was ready for the tenants.
4. Limit your luggage.
   We were in a bit of a tricky situation – packing to move for at least 4 years to a country with a temperate climate, but spending over a month traveling to places that were freezing. So we had to have clothes for all climates, but at the same time have the things we would need for life. We managed to squeeze everything into 5 bags, plus carry on, but wrangling all of it, plus the 2 kids, in and out of transport was tricky. Especially the trains in Switzerland.
   

   Waiting for the train in Geneva.

5. Take ‘comfort items’ for the kids.Not sure if I read that somewhere, or if someone told me, but it was some great advice. It’s tempting to take out the toys, game and books the kids love so there’s more space for more ‘important’ items, but having some things that the kids are familiar with has been invaluable. When they aren’t coping, pulling out something they love works wonders. Can be a hard call when one of the most important comfort items is a heat pack that weighs about a kilo, but it was a good call.
6. When you make the effort to visit people who are far away, even if you don’t know them, they don’t mind you staying a while! One of the hardest decisions we made on this trip was how long we wanted to spend with people in each place. Budget and time constraints are of course factors, but only staying a couple of days/nights because you don’t want to overstay your welcome shouldn’t come into it. Unless you are planning on staying for weeks or months – that might be a different story! I think our only regret was not having more time to spend with everyone.
7. Earplugs are the most amazing invention ever. Pack a decent supply!

So there it is. Seven things I’ve learned in the last few weeks, though I’m sure there are more.
How about you? Any lessons from major life changes?

Numbers

Maths is not my strong point. Numbers have never been my ‘thing’. But numbers seem to dominate life at the moment.

7 weeks of school left.
18 days until our deadline for support is reached.
70% to raise.
4 churches to visit.
53 days until we are due to fly out.
4 immunisations down, 5 more to go (each!).
5 Bible college subjects to finish.
1 house to pack, 1 tenant to find.
It seems like not enough days in a week or hours in a day to get everything done.

Honestly? It’s a hard place to be. If we don’t get 100% support, we don’t get to leave as planned.
The implications for not going, or not going YET, are massive – a whole different world of overwhelming.

I’ll admit – it’s gotten the best of me a few times, all I’ve wanted to do was crawl into bed, bury myself under the covers and sleep it all away, but that’s not an option.
So we look to the hills and hang on – trusting that He’s got us, He’s leading us and His timing is right.
And no matter what happens, He will continue to provide.

Thought that we would share a glimpse of camp – watching it keeps us focused and reminds us why we are going through all of this crazy!
Enjoy!

Part 2.

A continuation of The Backstory

Just to clarify, when I say application forms, it wasn’t a couple of pages with personal details etc. It was about 12 pages of every detail you can imagine – work history, personal history, our stance on various Biblical principles.
A week in (which equated to about 18 pages for my application alone) we were robbed and the computer was stolen.
Bye bye application forms, along with a lot of other stuff.

I lost my oomph at that point, the thought of starting the application again was not an exciting one.
(For some perspective, because at this point I feel like I’m sounding pretty pathetic! I also thought I’d lost 18 months of university coursework, hundreds of hours of personal reflection – a massive component of my Uni course, play therapy client notes, not to mention the personal documents, 5 years of teaching resources and family photos. I was a little overwhelmed! About a month later I discovered things weren’t quite that bad as I’d backed-up fairly recently & didn’t lose as much as I’d thought.)

During all of the time since the conference AIM had been sending us emails about the positions they had that needed filling – a huge variety of jobs in different African countries, with a multitude of people groups. Each time we received an email we’d look at it and rule it out for one reason or another – the main one being “It’s not in Kenya”.
In late October we received an email from AIM entitled “AIM youth work service options in Rwanda”. I almost didn’t bother opening it, but I did and discovered a job description that was almost an exact description of Pete’s current job. I texted Pete to tell him about the job (but not where it was), then forwarded the email – and heard nothing back. I figured it would be what had become the standard response – it’s not in Kenya.

But when Pete got home from work that afternoon, the first thing he said to me was, “So we’re moving to Rwanda?”

We halted progress on the SIM application (which simply meant not starting again!) and mulled over the pros and cons of completely changing our direction and heading to Rwanda. There were a lot of pros – much more temperate, school for the kids, not that much more difficult to get to Nairobi, a physically safer place. The cons – learning another language and being away from family and friends. The “it’s not Kenya” argument didn’t seem to factor in, but the “It’s too good to be true” argument did.
Eventually we decided that this was a God thing – why wouldn’t He provide an opportunity that exactly uses the gifts and passion that He’s given Pete?

We decided to go for it – started a whole new application form and submitted them about a week before Pete left for Kenya in December last year. We also added a Rwanda leg to his Kenya trip, meaning he was able to spend 3 days in Rwanda, checking out the camp, meeting the AIM team, & getting a very small taste of life in Kigali. He went to Rwanda with the hope that he would feel like we were headed in the right direction, he left feeling that we couldn’t not go!

And the rest, as they say, is history.

The backstory….

I had planned on writing this a while ago, but life has been pretty nuts of late. That, however, is a post for another day.

Lots of people have been asking questions along the lines of, “Why Rwanda, how did that happen, I thought you were going back to Kenya?”
The short answer to those questions is:
God. Unexpectedly. We were.

Well, that was easy!

But seriously, it’s a bit of a long story that starts about 12 years ago, almost to the day actually, now I think about it. Pete and I went on one of our first ‘dates’ (though I didn’t think of it as that at the time – we were just hanging out!) to watch the Safari Rally.

(Probably a little too close?)

Being stuck in the middle of nowhere for 6 hours meant we had plenty of time to talk. About everything. So we did. Pete shared with me his heart for the youth of Kenya and his desire to work in youth leadership training. At the time I was truly impressed by his passion and dedication to young people in a place where life doesn’t seem to offer much to many.

18 months later we were married and plotting life together – should we stay in Kenya? Return to Australia? We decided that Australia would offer the better opportunity for work and study (and I’ll be honest – I missed home and family), so we headed back with a very definite 5 year plan that would involve study and a return to Kenya.

The 5 year marker came and went with the planned study barely begun, 2 much loved small people had joined our family, and the return to Kenya was no more than a “one day” dream.

Fast forward another 4 years and the end of study was nigh so we decided to start looking for jobs in Kenya. Paid jobs, as neither of us relished the idea of raising support and relying on others to get us back ‘home’.  Plenty of options for me, not so many for Pete, at least not in his area of expertise and passion – youth leadership training and outdoor education. We ummed and ahhed and searched and prayed but nothing eventuated until we got to the point where we were feeling a bit frustrated and  wondered if we were supposed to go back to Kenya at all.

In August last year we decided to go to Reachout Missions Conference in an attempt to get some perspective, direction, confirmation.
Something.
Anything.
And that’s exactly what we got! For me it was a time of confirmation and encouragement, for Pete it cemented his desire to go ‘home’ and work with young people. For both of us we decided that if God wanted us to go back we had to be able to rely on His provision – including raising support, if that was the path He wanted us to head down.
We registered interest with SIM and AIM during the conference. Pete had found a position with SIM in Kenya that he felt he could do and was qualified for, so after chatting with SIM staff at the conference, we began exploring it when we got home.
Honestly, while it was a good opportunity with a well known project, it didn’t really tick all the boxes for Pete. But it was an opportunity to go ‘home’.

Then we realised that, while it was in Kenya, it wasn’t a Nairobi based project. It was based a 10 hour drive away, in a place that was constantly hot and humid and would require us to be permanently on malaria meds, with no schooling options for the kids, in a fairly unsettled community, far, far away from family and friends and the support network we assumed we’d be going back to. While Pete took all of that in stride, I was not so convinced that I would cope. In fact I was pretty sure I wouldn’t. But I was torn – I wanted to go back, I understood Pete’s desire to go home and do what he had always wanted to do, I wanted that for him. But I didn’t want to live in extreme heat and humidity, have to take malaria meds all the time, and the thought of home-schooling was not one that filled me with joy and excitement. And doing that away from all of my friends – what a lonely existence. So for about a month I mulled it over, thought about it, cried about it, questioned it, questioned myself, questioned God. Until I got to the point where I realised that it doesn’t work to say this is my favourite verse if I don’t believe it.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord.
“Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

~ Jeremiah 29:11 ~

So I decided to give it to God and believe that He truly does have plans for us. And if He wanted us there, He would give me the strength to cope.

We started to fill out the application forms.

A Swift Kick….

Sometimes a swift kick is what is needed for a bit of perspective.

 

 

I was thinking I’d give you a quick run-down of the content, but honestly – he says it so much better.

Couple of things that hit me:

God will take you where you haven’t chosen to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own. 

 

No one is more influential in your life than you are because no one talks to you more than you do……And you’re always preaching to yourself some kind of gospel.

 

 

Definitely worth watching, or if you prefer to just listen:

http://marshill.com/media/best-sermon-ever/dr-paul-tripp-the-difference-between-amazement-and-faith-mark-6-45-52

Or if you are a ‘device’ user, Mars Hill has an app with all their sermons and lots of other good stuff.

Felled

I’ve been trying to think of an analogy, or a metaphor, or something that would adequately sum up the last month. ‘Emotional rollercoaster’ was the best I could think of, but it seemed a bit……I dunno……cliché?  Trite?

Then I saw this picture.

Perfect.

Where a month ago everything was clear and bright and exciting, now it’s foggy and hard to see and messy.

Where everything was on track, now there seems to be no track.

The forest has been felled and everything laid bare.
Ripped up, ugly, muddy, broken.

And I haven’t coped with it very well at all.

Tears. Ranting. Barely able to get out of bed. More tears. Yelling. Eating (all the wrong stuff). Tears. There’s even been an f-bomb or two dropped. And more tears. Questions. Doubt. More tears. More questions. And every emotion known to man. It’s not been pretty.

And I feel guilty about that. All of it. I feel like I should have it all together.
Here we are, embarking on this journey to be ‘missionaries’ (still not a word that sits with me well or, I think, fits me). Spiritually mature, confident in their faith, trusting 100%, ready to face the world and whatever it throws at them with dignity and grace. A Bible verse for every situation and the perfect prayer on their lips.

And then there’s me. A blubbering mess, dropping f-bombs and no idea what to think, let alone pray. No confidence, a lot of questions, not even sure if I know what trust looks like any more. Wondering what is going to happen, when, how.

That hanging on thing? It’s down to a fingernail.

But you know what? God’s bigger than that. All of it.
Big enough to handle the mess that is me at the moment.
Big enough to cope with the tears, the ranting, even the language.

And best of all, I don’t have to hang on. I can let go (as difficult as that is) ‘cos He’s got me. He’s got us. Somehow he’s going to get us to the other side of this.

I don’t know what that means, I don’t know what it looks like. I’m not even sure what I am supposed to do – I think that’s the hardest part. But each day I just have to trust that He’s got me. If He’s got the sparrows, He’s got me.

Right?

Picture source